Crescent-News.com - DC men lose to Heidelberg

TIFFIN -- After racing out of the gates to a 14-4 advantage in the first 6:32 on the road at Heidelberg College on Tuesday evening, Defiance College was outscored by 24 points over the final 33:28 and suffered a 92-78 setback to the Student Princes.

The early 10-point edge for the Yellow Jackets (1-2) was short lived with Heidelberg (3-0) gaining its first lead at the 5:48 mark of the first half after scoring the opening bucket of the game.

DC was rowing upstream the rest of the evening as the 'Berg parlayed its 30-29 lead into a comfortable 11-point edge (49-38) at the halftime break.

Heidelberg shot a blistering 53 percent in the first 20 minutes of action while DC connected on only 14 of its 34 attempts and missed all but three of 10 shots beyond the three line.

"Obviously when you get off to a start like we have, with high expectations, but now we're 1-2," said Brumett. "We're disappointed, my team is disappointed, our players individually are disappointed, my staff is disappointed and I'm disappointed. It's a hard pill to swallow.

"We're sticking together and we're not giving up," continued Brumett. "We're going to go back to work and we're going to work harder, we're going to try to work smarter. We're going to get it figured out. I don't know if we'll have it figured out by Saturday, I don't know if we'll have it figured out by Sunday. But, I do know that I love my team, I trust them and I know we're going to work hard at figuring it out."

The second half was more of the same with the 'Berg continuing to shoot above 50 percent from the field and hardly let DC put a dent into the 49-38 halftime lead.

A Mike Floyd jumper with 12:18 left in the game sliced Heidelberg's lead to seven points at 61-54, but the Jackets never got closer with the 'Berg leading by as many as 16 on two occasions in the final 69 seconds of action.

Junior power forward Nick Sales paced the Jackets for the second consecutive game by backing up his 24-point effort against Madonna University on Saturday with another 24-point night. The Barberton native also hauled down a team-best eight rebounds.

Floyd added 15 points and dished out seven helpers for the third straight game while senior center Anthony Pettaway added 14 points.

The Tietje twins also contributed heavily off the bench with Kevin netting 10 points and Kyle scoring nine points. The Patrick Henry High School products combined to go 8-of-12 from the field.

A quartet of Student Princes hit the double-digit column with Kinn leading the way with 20 points and a dozen caroms. Jim Smalley added 17 points while Jake Hessey had 16 and Josh Calver 10.

DC will travel to Greencastle, Ind. this weekend and meet Ohio Northern University at 8 p.m. on Saturday in the opening round of the Community vs. Cancer Challenge at DePauw University. DC will then meet either Earlham or DePauw on Sunday in the consolation or championship contest.

Said Brumett: "Overall, we're poor defensively. We played pretty much like the Albion game. So, the coaching staff has some decisions to make. We've got to talk about the way we're playing. I have a style that I'd like to play but if it doesn't fit our players, then we've got to make some decisions. I think some of our players need to look themselves in the mirror and we've got to be better. We've got to be better on the defensive end and we've got to be better on the backboards."

Heidelberg outrebounded DC 41-32 in the contest and shot 30 freebies to DC's 23.

"We cannot get outrebounded and let your opponent shoot more free-throws than you shoot and expect to win games against good teams," explained Brumett. "We have played good teams. Both of our losses are against two good teams. Obviously Heidelberg is 3-0 and were in the (NCAA) tournament last year. It doesn't get any easier with Ohio Northern. We've got another really tough test in front of us. We're going to go back to work and see if we can respond."

BOX SCORE

DEFIANCE COLLEGE (78) - Sales 9-13 6-8 24; Pettaway 6-12 2-3 14; Floyd 5-12 4-4 15; Jackson 2-6 0-0 5; Armstrong 0-6 0-0 0; Ky. Tietje 4-8 0-0 9; Stolly 0-1 1-4 1; Brown 0-1, 0-0 0; Ke. Tietje 4-4 2-4 10; Morris 0-0 0-0; Conley 0-1 0-0 0; Stuckey 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 30-65 15-23 78.

HEIDELBERG COLLEGE (92) - Kinn 6-14 8-8 20; Tuley 4-8 1-3 9; Calver 3-6 2-2 10; Hessey 4-7 5-6 16; Smalley 8-13 1-3 17; Aden 1-3 2-2 4; Brubaker 0-0 0-0 0; Emrhein 0-0 0-0 0; Treese 3-3 2-2 8; John Miller 0-2 2-2 2; Barrett 1-1 0-0 2; Timbs 0-1 0-0 0; Joel Miller 0-0 0-0 0; Farnsworth 0-0 0-0 0; Flynn 1-2 2-2 4. Totals 31-60 25-30 92.

3-point goals: Defiance College 3-17 (Pettaway 0-2, Floyd 1-3, Jackson 1-4, Armstrong 0-5, Ky. Tietje 1-1, Stolly 0-1, Stuckey 0-1). Heidelberg College 5-10 (Calver 2-4, Hessey 3-4, John Miller 0-2).

Rebounds: Defiance College 32 (Sales 8), Heidelberg College 41 (Kinn 12).

Turnovers: Defiance College 14, Heidelberg College 14.

Defiance College 38 40 - 78

Heidelberg College 49 43 - 92